何巴特“公司伴妻”书写与女性帝国离散者的话语困境

"Company Wife" and Their Discourse Dilemma in A.T.Hobart's Writings of Imperial Diaspora

何巴特是20世纪以书写中国而曾与赛珍珠齐名的美国作家,来华后先在杭州的教会学校任教,后嫁给美孚石油公司在华销售代表,辗转中国各地近20年。何巴特擅长从美国商人的视角呈现中美文化接触地带的动荡与演进,勾勒了美国在华帝国离散者的近代史,尤其让那些几乎在任何文本中都销声匿迹的"公司伴妻"群体显影,再现她们与"天定使命"帝国话语共谋的"天定齐家"努力,以及在帝国话语裂隙中流露的女性"反话语",对大公司剥夺海外女性主体性的反抗。

A. T. Hobart, like Pearl S. Buck, was well-known in the 20th century for her writings of China. She first taught at a Hangzhou missionary school and then married a sales representative from American Standard Oil. In the following 20 years, the couple was sta- tioned at ports from Manchuria to Southwest China. Hobart generally wrote from the perspective of American merchants and outlined a modern history of American imperial diaspora in China. Most memorable were her apparitions of the invisible ＂company wives＂, who took care of homes for those pioneering merchants and whose efforts at manifest domesticity were embraced by the imperial discourse of their husbands＇ ＂Manifest Destiny＂. What was glimmering through the gaps of the grand narration of the imperial commercial empire was these wives＇ resistance to the deprivation of their subjectivity.